Brainstorming

Rob

Thursday. October 18, 1973. Some time after the field team gets back from Ohio (is this the next day?) Archie will find Charley and ask her if she'd like to go for a walk with him. "I don't know about you, jelly bean, but I need to get out of this hangar and stretch my legs," he says.

Assuming she does, he'll chat with her as they walk, about the last few days, about wanting to get home to Mom and Janie and Eddie, about the Underwater Panther seance if she wants to talk about it. After they've been strolling a while and are some place where surveillance is unlikely, he'll bring up the other Indigo Children.

"So: what's it like seeing the other children from Granite Peak again? Is it good? Or, maybe not so good? I thought you might enjoy catching up with them, but you don't seem to be spending a lot of time together. I guess grownups always think that kids will just naturally 'click,' but it doesn't always work that way."

Michael

(Yep, the field team came back overnight; the communing with Underwater Panther was Wednesday night and this is Thursday morning)

Mel

Charley studies Archie's face as she tries to figure out what he's really asking. "No, Dad, it's not like if Jane or Eddie were to show up. I don't know them. Why?"

Rob

"No, no, I guess it's not the same as Jane or Eddie," Archie says, realizing not for the first time just how little he still knows of what her life at Granite Peak was like.

He pushes his glasses up his nose. "Let me come at this another way. The folks we've been calling OZYMANDIAS: We gave their bell a good ring, but they're still out there. And what's worse, maybe, their ideas are still out there.

"You know the kind of baloney we got from Puharich, from Dr. Stanton: 'We can't win against the Anunnaki, we'd be better off giving up the mass of humanity, arming a few elite soldiers with weird science, psychic powers, to face the world to come.' I don't buy it, and I know you're too smart and too brave to buy it. But I wonder if that whole line wouldn't appeal to, well, to some lonely children, ones without loving families, ones with abilities that set them apart from other folks. You know?" He watches closely for her reaction.

"I've been wondering if there's a way we — you and I — could help the other children here, and try to keep Puharich and his cronies from getting their hooks in them. What would you think of that?"

Mel

Charley feels frozen by Archie's question because it means thinking about the program, and the weight of those thoughts threatens to pull her down into the abysmal depths. "Well," she says, allowing her the space to shift her thoughts towards not what was but what could be. "You mean, should we try and make it right?"

"Well," she says again this time with a smile. "Yes, for all 26."

"We need to figure out where all 26 kids are. We only have the reports on the other four assigned to ALLOCHTHON."

Rob

"Well … yes, yes, we should try to find them, and see how we can help them. But in the short term, I was thinking about a meme. One to help them help themselves. A story we could tell them that might protect them from those sorts of ideas. Sort of like a vaccination: 'Don't listen to OZYMANDIAS.' Or maybe: 'don't listen to SANDMAN,' ha ha. Something that would be useful to them. And if we shared it with the other kids here, they might pass it on to others, back at Granite Peak, or Puharich's farm in New York."

Archie takes Charley's hand and looks her in the eyes. "But then I think, maybe these poor children have been poked and prodded enough. Planting ideas in their heads, using the enemy's tricks to make them sticky … is it right? So I want to know what you think, Charley."

Mel

Charley nods.

"Dad? What is the main difference between a meme and an idea? Are they two sides of the same coin? Is there any real difference? Is it the intention behind them?

"I mean. I wouldn't like to make them think anything. But, sending them a secret warning that offers them … perspective. That seems like a good thing.

"Oh!! But we could meme the heck out of the doctors!"

"You know what would be fun is to do a movie with the puppets that perhaps held a message for the kids that only they would see. Is that possible? Or.. Or..." Charley continues to ponder the possibilities giving Archie a chance to chime in.

Rob

"You always ask the big questions, Charley. A meme is just an idea, but I guess it's an idea with a little life of its own. It wants to spread, from person to person. It adapts to its hosts, but it also changes them along the way. Practically, what makes an idea a meme is if we seed it with the Anunnaki source code. That makes it much stickier: faster to spread, harder to resist."

Archie smiles, chuckling warmly at the idea of memeing the doctors. "Yes! The puppets are swell with memes and I have some ideas about getting them back on TV. I'm sure Hobo Stan would love to teach all of you some colorful language, ha ha. But for now, well, I wonder if some of the kids here are too old for puppet shows. Also, I don't want to be too obvious. If Puharich or anyone else got wind that I'd introduced Fox, Delta, Hilton to the Ransom Gang, it would be pretty easy to guess what we were up to.

"But if we came up with something good — nothing that would make anybody do anything, just a warning, just like you say - the simplest way to spread it would be for you to go talk to them. That's all it takes. You just tell them a little story, in a certain way, emphasizing certain phrases, pausing in certain ways. You could even put it in a riddle, or a joke, maybe a song. And you kids, just talking to each other, that shouldn't make anyone suspicious.

"But to do it that way, you'd probably have to catch the meme too. So it's important we craft it carefully, and together."

Mel

“Oh right, the source code.

“I remember this scary game Jane, was telling Eddie about that she played when there was that sleep over at Kim’s a while back. You won’t believe this but it’s called the sandman game. It’s played by telling a story to someone about their body being filled with SAND! Geez, what if the meme was like you know why the agents are called SANDMAN??? Because they fill you … no no no, that’s dumb.” Charley, looks stumped for the time being.

Rob

"No, no, there are no dumb ideas in advertising — trust me! We're brainstorming, that's where it all starts." He tousles her hair affectionately as they arrive back at the hangar. "Thanks for the chat, sweetpea. I'll work up some ideas and run them by you."